Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1887-07-15
Ingers0II's jug of whisky.

ln.ersOiIs jug OF w hisky.
My DEAR COLONEL: You remember
presume, once sending your friend {
jug of chronic whisky bearing this la5e
of praise to his enemy:
~ send you some of the most wonder
full whisky that ever drove skeleton
from the feast or painted landscapes in
the brain of man. 1t is the mingled
souls of wheat and corn. In it you will
find the sunshine and the shadow thai
chased each other over the bllowy fields
the breath of June, the carol of the lark
the dews of night, the wealth of summer
and autumn's rich content, all golden
with imprisoned light. Drink it, aud
maidens singing the Harvest Home,
mingled with the laughter of children
Drink it, and you will feel within your
blood the startled dawus, the dreamy
tawny dusks of many perfect days. For
forty years this liquid joy has been with
in the happy stayes of oak, longing to
touch the lips of man"
OF course, Colonel, you will be glad to
learn how it and he took to each other.
Well, believing you, lie drank of that
jug till "the skeleton it drove from the
feast" came and sat in ugly profile on
his hearthstone-drank till the land
scapes in blossoms on the walls of his
home he pilfered and pawned to paint
your arid Landscapes in his brain 1t
was "the mingled souls of wheat and
corn" you told him, but ere he half had
finished it stole away the last reluctant
kernel garnered for growing children,
and it conjured the "mngled souls" OF
evil DING and pauper-liying to drive out
the radiant spirits of manhood and a
plenteous life.
Still he hoped, for you told him he'd
find in it sunshine; but he found in it
only raven shadows, each Tapping wings
blacker than its elder fellow-shadows
that chased each other with buzzard
greed, for both carcass and the immortal,
and chased their victim ont of the great
armchair of rich content up to the rough
pine stool in the dismal garret, while
close beside him they chased into that
NANCY shelter the last Of one loving
woman with the broken soul, her fever
pinched young John and little starving
Mary. In it, too, he found, not your
pansy breath of June, the carol of the
lark and the dews of night that kiss the
coming corn, but the stark mad blast of
December, the bark of the wolf at his
door, and the molderiug dampness of the
night OF despair.
Then you sang to him OF the wealth of
summer and autumn's rich content that
should twine the neck Of your Bourbon
chalice, but it twined for him barren
summer to an angry winter and rags that
knit themselves together in "imprisoned'
darkness.
Yet the friend of your fascinating
enmity drank OH till, down into the
fostering cellar and the crawling saw
dust, lie loafeG and listened for your
"Harvest HCme," bat heard only your
brutal men and madens vendible utter
maudlin blasphemy Of the Master, and
caught the melody of their shame in
brace Of unclean song. Why, sir, he
drank till the heavenly laughter Of little
children round his knee died away into
restless moaning-died into the dying
child's whispered wall for bread!
Drank? Yea, fast and deep he drank
your dreamy potion off, till deep and fast
within his blood he felt, never one star
led dawn, but forever life eclipsed, the
sun Of the future always setting, sinking
through the tawny dusks Of the clouded
mind toward that midnight which fore
tells no day into the final gloom of the
drunkard-the damnation that's endless
in its desolation!
There, declining foe. you'll find your
friend, and the days OF his homage to
your deformed genius being spent, he'll
gather courage to say: Colonel Inger-
soil, If from out thy eaFthen cask hath
crept unto me one liquid joy, 1t is that
here | look upon its giver eternally
kenneled beside the offspring Of his gift,
thy soul weary. scorched and quench-
less messmate at the feast ofthy betrayed
the host that worshiped thee and the
feast whence the skeleton shall never
depart"
Sir Robert, III ungratefui beguilement
of many unstable souls and the crush OF
sweet homes only soberness can build,
uone-no, not one-hath so measured up
TO the warped, unwashable Crosby as
hast thou in thy staDza Of prose accredit-
ing with life the death-begetting sweat
of the still.
JAMES CLEMENT AMBROSE.
EyertOn, H., June s.
A Boston lady of culture visiting
Whitehall friends had occasion 10 have